


Pancakes

by chronicAngel



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Fluff, Cooking, Drabble, Gen, POV Third Person, Pancakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 20:52:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13749042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: There are two disastrous days a year where his boys try to cook.





	Pancakes

There are two disastrous days a year where his boys try to cook.

The second is Father's Day, where all four of them gather in the kitchen early in the morning (one of the only times you can get Tim out of bed before noon) to make breakfast before Alfred has a chance to start on it. It astounds him how hard four boys have to try to make an omelet. Even more impressive is the fact that if anything, their cooking has only grown worse over the years. He is as sure Alfred is faking his enjoyment of the annual meal as he is that he himself is.

The first, though, is Bruce’s birthday in February.

Cassandra, who ironically is the best cook of all of them, is thoughtful enough to stay away from anything that makes fire, sent in before the brigade to wake him up when the sun has barely risen over one of the many Wayne Enterprises skyscrapers with a card that she has clearly made herself. She’s almost bashful when she offers it to him, beaming when he looks at her with misty, prideful eyes and grabs her for a rare hug. She half-shuffles out of the room, barely having cleared the doorway before the boys are bursting in, Dick standing at the front as a clear ringleader.

Jason brings up the rear when they have all made it into his room, hands stuffed in his pockets as he apparently still tries to pretend that he doesn’t want to be here. Bruce lets him pretend if only because he doesn’t want the boy storming out dramatically proclaiming his hatred of this family just to make a point like he is oft known to do.

Tim holds the tray with the actual breakfast on it, and Bruce is reminded of bright mornings in the years immediately following his parents’ deaths when he would wake to Alfred carrying the same tray with toast and orange juice and a simple  _Happy birthday, Master Bruce_. The memory brings a smile to his lips that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners.

Damian stands next to Tim at the side of his bed, eyeballing the tray out of the corner of his eyes as though silently wishing he were the one holding it if only to occupy his hands, which he wrings in front of him in a fashion that might be described as nervous. After a moment, he slides his eyes from the silver platter and the plates upon it to Bruce’s face, and their eyes meet for just a moment. "I have been told it is tradition to make breakfast every year," he says, gaze dropping to his feet.

It is Bruce’s first birthday with his youngest son and he finds himself wondering if Damian is nervous about it. He had barely thought about it, considering it just another birthday that will pass with an inevitable almost-kitchen fire and his sons all piling onto his bed at an unreasonable hour, with Jason complaining about unnecessary affection and being crushed under the weight of the rest of his brothers and Dick elbowing him in the ribs and telling him to just drop the act for once. Clearly, his youngest has had another image painted in his mind. Bruce wonders if he considers this another sort of test to see if he is worthy as a son. In his own way, Damian compares himself to his brothers as much as they all did when they were the youngest. "Don’t be such an alien," Jason snorts, breaking the silence Bruce hadn’t even noticed wash over them.

For his part, Bruce breaks tradition. Every year, he will typically take a bite of whatever they’ve made him (it’s almost always eggs, but he remembers the grins on Dick and Tim’s faces when they proudly presented him with waffles the year they found Stephanie-- as much as anybody _finds_ Stephanie) very slowly, making a huge show of it and for once demonstrating where, exactly, his boys got their dramatic flair. It’s often undercooked or has too much salt or there is something else wrong with it, but he will continue to eat it anyway because he is nothing if not a being of sentiment. This year, he drags Damian into his lap and ruffles his hair before taking a bite of his breakfast. They’ve made pancakes this year, and he is sure that the maple syrup smiley face seeping into the one on top of the stack was Dick’s idea, too dorky and childish to be anyone else.

He is surprised to find that it isn’t more batter than actual pancake as he’s often found his sons’ attempts at pancakes to be, nor is it horribly burned, clearly having lost the bottom half to the pan. They are by no means the best pancakes he’s had (after all, he’s had crêpes prepared for him by private chefs in France) but they exceed both memory and expectation. After witnessing their littlest brother dragged down onto the bed, they’ve all taken up seats around his legs, watching him with bated breath the same way they always do while he chews. He swallows, chasing the bite with the black coffee in the same mug Dick got him in their first year together that rests on the corner of the tray next to a glass of orange juice. "It’s wonderful. Thank you, boys."

They all seem to let out a collective breath. "Happy birthday, B," Tim says, slouching forward against his arm.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy late birthday to Bruce, and happy actual birthday to my uncle. Most of this was written on my other uncle’s Chromebook while waiting for the one whose birthday it is to get home from work, so special thanks to William for letting me use his device and to Timothy for, as usual, being late and giving me time to finish this.


End file.
